Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nobody's going to win an Emmy for a parody of the TV show "Star Trek" filmed by Internal Revenue Service employees at an agency studio in Maryland.

Instead, the IRS got a rebuke from Congress for wasting taxpayer dollars.

The agency says the video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show "Gilligan's Island," cost about $60,000. The "Star Trek" video accounted for most of the money, the agency said.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska announced Monday that he will not seek re-election in 2014, explaining that he wants a "quieter time" to focus on his family following a busy political career that has included a stint as governor and President George W. Bush's agriculture secretary.

The Nebraska Republican announced in a statement that was retiring from the Senate after one term. He said he and his wife, Stephanie, had decided that the time has come "to close this chapter of our lives."

Congressional investigators have pieced together a series of decisions that led State Department officials to inexplicably draw down security in Libya last year even as threats and attacks against Western diplomats were rising in the violent, chaotic city of Benghazi where America’s ambassador was killed last Sept. 11.

Last year, farmer Marlin Stutzman collected $30,813 in direct federal subsidies for his Stuzman Farms in Indiana and southern Michigan.

This year, as a newly elected member of Congress, Stutzman, R-Ind., sits on the House Agriculture Committee that will help determine if those subsidies will continue.